New York Minute in a Freaky Friday
by Cecil Jacobson
Summary: A fanfic involving the characters of Freaky Friday and New York Minute.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is a fanfic combining the 2 fantastic movies, Freaky Friday and New York Minute. It is **not** a mysterious weird mind-swapping incident like what happened in Freaky Friday, but rather, concentrates on crossover interaction among some of the best and most memorable characters of these 2 movies.

Disclaimer : I do not own these 2 movies, or any of their characters.

Roxy Ryan unpacked her bag and examined the items she had brought along to her relatives' house. Among the items which she brought from her home in Nassau County Long Island were her spare clothes which mostly consisted of band t-shirts and jeans, were her iPod, a copy of her band Zen Riot's CD, as well as a pair of drumsticks. She twirled the drumsticks in the air with adept skill and played on imaginary drums. Then she realized that there were no actual drums in this house for her to practice on. Oh well, she thought, and placed the drumsticks back into her bag.

It was the summer break, and Roxy had grudgingly accompanied her father to Santa Monica, California. He had to attend an important medical convention for approximately slightly more than a week. Her sister, Jane, was away in England, attending a 4-year scholarship course in Oxford University. Roxy recalled their peculiar and intriguing adventures a few weeks ago, which deviated from their usual monotonous routine of attending school (or rather, for her, added interesting variations to her class-skipping activities). On that particularly wacky day, she and her sister were literally running and driving circles around Manhattan, dodging their old and new adversaries and encountering numerous comical situations. But most important, she had gained understanding and won substantial respect from even her perfectionist sister when she filled in for her during first few minutes of speech at the scholarship competition at Columbia University while Jane was scrambling there to make it on time like her future depended on it. "Yea it was one freaking awesome day!" Roxy declared.

After a while, the inevitable feeling of boredom crept in. Her father was out in the city for his conference as usual and would only be back earliest in the evening. Maybe she should call Trey Lipton, but he was probably too busy at a Congress after-party with his mom. How about Jane? Nope she was possibly and thought she should go for a stroll round the neighborhood. Although she was quite familiar with bigger cities like LA, she had seldom been to smaller suburban towns like Santa Monica before, and thus was still somewhat hazy on their layouts.

Roxy got off the couch and put on her red cap, which supplemented her usual rocker outfit of black Metallica t-shirt, and tattered blue jeans. She stuffed her mobile phone and iPod into her pocket,

before heading for the door.

After stepping out of the main door into the porch, Roxy peered at the street ahead. Being the holidays, most people were either at home or on vacation, and the road was generally empty. A breeze of refreshing cool air slightly ruffled her wavy dirty-blonde hair, which was kept mostly in place by her red cap, as she walked towards the gate. She decided some music from her iPod would complement her neighborhood exploration.

No sooner had she put on the earplugs of the iPod, when an unfamiliar tune began to tingle her ears. Roxy thought her iPod must have developed an artificial intelligence of its own and composed its own special breed of new music, when she realized that it was not even switched on. She took off the earplugs and observed the sounds from the surroundings. The music seemed to be made up of electric guitar melodies and bass notes, and fast drumming. It sounded like a garage band was active nearby. She followed the music until she arrived at a house two units away, which she deduced was its likeliest source. True enough, the infectious tunes were streaming out of its closed garage. Roxy stopped and listened. It sounded like sort of the same kind of song her own band would play back home in New York. In fact, the guitar strumming not only rivaled, but perhaps, sounded way better than that of her own band.


	2. Chapter 2

Roxy stood just outside the gate carefully observing the music in silent awe. Just then, a voice interrupted her concentration.

"Hello!"

Roxy spun to her right and saw a woman who looked to be in her late 40's walking on the pavement towards the gate. The woman had neat, short-cropped hair and wore a black coat and pants, and carried a suitcase, signifying that she had probably returned from work. Roxy assessed that she must be a professional. The woman smiled pleasantly.

"Are you looking for Anna? They are in the garage. Sorry if she can't hear you. It's too loud," the woman said.

"Er..well, I just happened to pass by," Roxy answered in contemplation.

"You want to come on in then?" asked the woman.

"Uh nevermind I have to go home for dinner," Roxy replied after some hesitation.

"Feel free to drop by anytime you like," stated the woman as Roxy started to walk back home.

As she casually strolled back in the direction of her relatives' house, Roxy wondered which band was rocking out in the garage just now. Was it publicly well known? It certainly sounded like they could have easily produced a number of hit albums through their skill and enthusiasm. Or perhaps, it was not a live band at all, but rather, someone had left the home stereo system on with its volume tuned up to concentration-breaking heights, using the strategy of noise annoyance as an asymmetric tactic in a neighborhood dispute, as one of the means of retaliation against some nasty neighbors. These and other thoughts fleeted through Roxy's mind as she approached her house.

As she stepped passed the front gate, Roxy noticed that Aunt Jenny's car was parked in the porch,

"Is dad back?" Roxy enquired as her aunt was checking out a new pair of binoculars she had just bought.

" He's upstairs, hun," Aunt Jenny gestured while peering through the lens out of the window.

Roxy decided not to enquire about her aunt's new sight range enhancement device, and trodded up the stairs and found her father unpacking his bag in the spare room.

"Dad, can we go out for dinner?"

"Sure, I'm literally starving to know what's going on around this town," her dad replied, and then he lowered his voice to virtually a whisper, "Besides, your aunt hardly ever cooks, and when she does, it can keep the hungriest mongrel satisfied with just one bite."

"How's your day at the convention?" Roxy inquired, seeing her father looked somewhat lethargic or exhausted.

"Oh its nothing. At least I don't have to see those morons in my office back in New York, who think they can boss and push me around and think they are smarter than me. They don't have even half of the brain I have" Her dad answered with a laugh as he placed his laptop computer on the desk.

"Yea dad we know you literally own them when it comes to cerebral power." Roxy rolled her eyes as she replied. She and Jane (and their mum) had heard her dad's self-declaration in mental capability as often as he stirred his cup of morning coffee.

Roxy followed her father downstairs.

"It's time for dinner. You wanna bring that along?" Her dad asked Aunt Jenny.

"Err, nope," replied her aunt as she appeared to muse for a while before placing the binoculars on the coffee table.

"Good gosh, coz we are not touring Niagara Falls anyway," Roxy muttered with a shrug.

As their car reversed out of the porch and rolled off along the street, Roxy looked in wonder at the house she had stopped at earlier. It looked calm and quiet, as though its occupants had also gone out. Roxy tapped the seat and pondered for a while. Was Anna the woman's daughter? And were the infectious and catchy tunes attributed to her? The more Roxy thought, the more she became fascinated. She then made up her mind to pay them a visit the next day.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, Roxy stomped out of the gate of her relatives' house to take a stroll around the neighbourhood another time. It was only the second day, and she was already starting to feel the familiar air of monotony creeping in. She and her dad only had the company of her aunt, as her uncle was overseas, and her cousins happened to be away on a school-sponsored foreign study trip. Her relatives' house was a double storey detached bungalow about the same size as hers, but with a cramped attic, dank and dusty basement, and a sizeable garage that could park two cars. However, it lacked all the necessary avenues of entertainment according to Roxy, such as a desktop computer or gaming console. In addition, her aunt's sound stereo system had strangely malfunctioned the day she arrived, thus leaving her unable to rock out to her band's CD, although her aunt insisted it had worked flawlessly the day before. Hence, Roxy decided she had better resume her neighbourhood exploration before the boredom drove her bonkers. She headed down the same street she plodded along the day before, soaking in the fresh morning air and lukewarm sunshine, her floppy red beret cap perched in a slight slant on her head.

As Roxy walked by the house where the funky stream of music emanated from the day before, the door opened and out marched a teenage girl approximately the same age as her. Roxy observed that she had straight reddish brown hair highlighted with blond streaks, and a lightly freckled face. She wore a black t-shirt with long red sleeves, olive green pants that seemed to be cut off at the ankles, a studded belt, and black converse sneakers with blue shoelaces. In addition, she also had on a black dog collar style choker, and numerous wristbands. Roxy also noticed she had black nail polish, just like hers. Roxy stopped and stared in awe as the girl strode casually down the garden path, nonchalant and seemingly oblivious of Roxy's presence. From her attire, Roxy guessed that she must be a skateboarder, or a rocker just like herself. As the girl neared and turned her head slightly in Roxy's direction, Roxy, at a loss for words, managed a nervous grin and stuttered, "H…hello."

The girl smiled with friendliness and replied," Hi!"

Roxy, feeling more at ease now, said," My name's Roxy. How are you?"

"I'm Anna. Nice to meet you" the girl answered coolly and casually.

"Have you just moved here? By the way, nice cap," Anna added.

"Thanks. Well, actually I'm just visiting my relatives for the time being," said Roxy," I live on Long Island."

"You love Simple Plan too? That's great!" Anna remarked.

"Oh yea they are awesome. In fact, they are my favourite band," Roxy replied after taking a glance at her own t-shirt.

"I also like Lash, Green Day, The Hives, Fall Out Boy, Halo Friendlies, and Lillix," Anna quipped.

"Yea they are awesome, especially Lillix, wish there were more girl bands like that," Roxy replied in earnest.

Roxy, wanting to put at ease the uncertainty that had been plaguing her since the day before, then let loose the question that had been floating around the inner recesses of her mind.

"Anna, are you in a band?"

"Why yes. How did you guess?"

"Well, yesterday, I heard this great music coming from your garage. It was really fabulous. I really loved the guitar chords the most," Roxy remarked with unflinching enthusiasm.

"Thanks," Anna replied with a smile. " By the way, are you in a band too?"

"Yup, but I'm only the drummer. It's the only instrument I've learnt to play so far," Roxy spoke with a small sigh.

"That's cool too. I mostly play the electric guitar, and I'm somewhat a novice at bass. So what's the name of your band?" Anna asked.

"It's called Zen Riot. We felt it would be a really cool name for an unknown upstart band like ours. And by the way, I'm the only girl in the band," Roxy answered.

"Mine's named Pink Slip. We have 3 girls, including me, and 2 guys," Anna quipped. "We usually play on weekdays after school in my garage."

"That's great! How did the name come about?" Roxy quizzed.

"It's simply refers to the pink paper for layoffs, in other words, means they're fired from work," Anna explained.

"Oh I did not really know that, partly coz I've not really done a full time job yet," Roxy said.

"I guess neither have I for as long as I can remember," Anna replied. "Anyways, which house are you staying in for your vacation?" 

"Well, it's number 30."

"Nice, it's just down the road. You can drop by at my house anytime. Or I could go to yours. My exams are over too, so school's out for the time being. By the way, do u have any siblings?"

"Well, I only have a sister. And she's totally different from me. She thinks of my drumming as simply noise," Roxy said with mock exhaustion.

"I have a little brother, who drives me nuts with his bratty ways," Anna said. "By the way, are you free now? You can come in and have a seat if you like."

"Sure, thanks," Roxy replied as she walked in past the open gate and followed Anna up the path and into the house.


End file.
